Florida United Methodist Children's Home, Inc.

Mission:
"Where Children Come First"
The purpose of The Florida United Methodist Children's Home is to create an atmosphere, which enables children and families with special needs to experience God's love and care as presented in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Combining Christian influence with a healing, caring, therapeutic community, the Home provides a continuum of highly specialized services designed to strengthen individual and family life. Target demographics:
Abused, neglected, or abandoned children between the ages of 7-17 in our residential care, and 0-17 in foster care. We also have adoption services. Direct beneficiaries per year:
Nearly 800 children in need Geographic areas served:
The State of Florida Programs:
Residential Care
Independent Living
Foster Care
Adoption Services

Community Reviews

Some attention needs to be focused on the situation with meals at this facility. In particular, menu planning and logistics are NOT coordinated in any useful sense -- menus are not being based on supplies on hand OR on meeting budget constraints. Meals have been served late, with major elements missing (no butter for bread or for making gravy, for example). Cucumber salad for 100 people involved the purchase of FOUR cucumbers; bananas purchased Friday for a fruit salad on Monday were left out all weekend in the heat, and were PAST ripe on Monday...

The person planning the menus is overloaded with other responsibilities, all of which are suffering, yet insists on micro-managing the entire process. From their Facebook page I understand that a long-term cook has just recently retired -- I have to wonder to what extent this ongoing issue was involved in that retirement.

In early December I visited Florida United Methodist Children's Home with a group from Pine Castle United Methodist in Orlando. It was a great experience! The campus is much larger than I had imagined, it's a lovely setting with many trees, and the staff were friendly and seemed very caring. I was impressed that the children live in "cottages," each with a "mother and father" to give them guidance and love. (The cottages are usually a long house-like building that holds about 12 children.) They all live there together as a family and eat their meals together. Children also attend school, and have access to medical care and counseling. They have chapel services on campus, too. What a wonderful home for kids who have had a rough spot in life.